He looked hard at her. "'Kase it's dangersome. I'm a man hunted fur my life, I reckon. It's dangersome fur me, an' fur ye too, ter know I be hyar." "It's jes' ez well I ain't one of the skeery kind, then," said Julia hardily. "I be powerful glad I seen ye hyar." She seemed curiously unfamiliar to him in some sort. So alert had his faculties become in the suspense of jeopardy that this slight point perturbed him, until he bethought himself that he had hitherto heard her speak so seldom, and had observed her so little, that the very inflections of her voice were strange. It was of a different timbre from Adelicia's. It did not vibrate. It had a conclusive, flutelike quality, without a trailing sequence of resonance. "Waal, I 'lowed ez mos' ennybody mought be sorry ter see me in sech a fix as this," he said dolorously. The deliberate, impassive Julia was almost in haste to avert this apparent misconstruction. "Oh, I war glad ter view ye, 'kase a heap o' folks 'lowed ye couldn't hev got away 'thout yer horse, him bein' kilt, an' ez ye war a-lyin' in the laurel somewhar, dead, yit." She turned her head, and looked steadily at him. Her deep, dark, translucent eyes were full of shoaling lights of variant blue, like the heart of some great sapphire. The long, curling lashes flung a fibrous shadow on her cheek; its texture, as the light fell upon it, was so fine, so soft, its tints so fair, its curve so delicate. Her lips, chiseled like some triumph of ideal beauty, but that no sculpture could express their mobile sweetness, parted suddenly in her rare and brilliant smile. Many a man, under its glamours, might have taken heart of grace to be glad that he was alive; but Espey's face hardened. "'T would be jes' ez well, jes' ez well, lying dead in the laur'l," he said bitterly. Then, with an afterthought, "Let them folks stay 'feared. They won't spile thar health quakin' an' shudderin' 'bout me," he added cynically. As he marked her expression change, her smile vanish, he realized the necessity to please, to propitiate. He knew her so slightly; his temper must not be too savage and surly with so complete a stranger, and perhaps earn her antagonism, especially since he and his refuge were at her mercy. "Course," he went on, with a clumsy effort at amends, "I don't mean Ad'licia. Ye knowed we-uns war keepin' comp'ny?" She nodded gravely. "I know Ad'licia hev quaked an' shuddered 'bout me a heap mo' 'n I be wuth," he added.